


The Pearl of the Black Queen

by HueyNomure



Series: Disaster-sower [1]
Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Innistrad, Lovecraftian Horrors, Magic: Expanded Multiverse, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 17:04:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12258492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HueyNomure/pseuds/HueyNomure
Summary: In Innistrad, two pen pals meet after a long correspondence. What's the worse that could happen?





	The Pearl of the Black Queen

Silas heard a faint knock from the front door. When he opened the eyehole, a pair of dull grey eyes with dark circles met his gaze.

“Ungar Landvik, um, here to talk with mister Randal Karnhoff about, er, an important matter,” muttered the pale and scrawny man on the other side of the door.

Silas knew that, as a manservant, he wasn’t allowed to judge his master’s acquaintances, but he could feel the reputation of the respectable Karnhoff house being tarnished just by having this Ungar Landvik near the front door. The color of his suit was dulled by wear, and he held a tacky cane to the chest with both his pale hands; his short hair was disheveled and his gaunt face spoke of misery and fearlessness. After a moment of silence Ungar started fumbling in his coat.

“Here’s, um, where is it now, oh good, yes here’s the invitation letter,” Ungar added, gingerly bringing an envelope close to the eyehole. Silas noticed the ring on his middle finger lacked its stone; he could swear those horrible urchins who lived off dirt and petty theft had more class. But the envelope undoubtedly carried the master’s firm handwriting, so Silas opened the door. Ungar walked inside with the help of his cane; the crystal sphere on its head was probably his most valuable possession. Silas extended a hand; Ungar looked at it intently, clearly uncertain about the next move.

“Your coat, mister Landvik?” Silas blurted with impatience; anything more blunt than that would have been a direct insult to the guest. Ungar flashed an apologetic smile and started shedding his overlarge jacket; Silas noticed the thin man was going out of his way to make sure he never lost contact with his cane.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to take your cane too,” Silas added when Ungar had given him the large jacket. The miserable man looked crestfallen; he leaned backwards, half-hiding the cane behind his back. “I have to insist, these are master Randal’s explicit orders,” Silas continued. The expression on Ungar’s face became even more pathetic; Silas weighted the insult to a guest against the defiance to the master’s orders for a split second, then reached behind the scrawny man to grab the cane.

Silas felt his strength being drained as his fingers brushed against the crystal sphere; he dragged his feet backwards, suddenly exhausted. Had master Randal’s invited another ghoulcaller in his respectable house? Why was he attacking a servant of the most feared man of the region? Ungar watched his cane with pleading eyes for a moment, then extended the cane toward Silas with shaking hands; Silas stumbled backwards and fell to his knees. Silas opened his mouth to scream, but all the air was sucked out from his lungs. As the crystal orb got closer to Silas’ face, the old man started to hear a low, vast and above all _ravenous_ growl…

“You woke it up,” Ungar said, a timid reproach in his tone, “now it’s your responsibility to, um, put it back to sleep.”

 

* * *

 

Ungar Landvik was even smaller than Randal had assumed. The Karnhoff men tended to be rather brawny, and Randal enjoyed physical exercise more than most of his merchant peers, but the thin man who entered his library was barely half his size. The scrawny man stepped in as it was some sort of sacred space, head low between his shoulders and eyes darting across the room; he visibly jumped when Randal loudly closed the book he was reading.

“Greetings, mister Karnhoff, I seem to find you in, um, excellent health,” Ungar began. Randal raised a hand to stop him, using the other to point at the chairs on the other side of the desk.

“Please, dear Ungar, call me Randal,” the merchant said, and the thin man smiled timidly as he took a seat. “After our frequent correspondence I think we can take this freedom with other. I must say, I cannot believe I lived near such an expert of arcane trivia for all this time.”

“Huh?” The smile was quickly replaced by a puzzled and fearful look on Ungar’s face.

“I mean, you are here merely days after I sent you my invitation; from the timing of your replies I thought you lived near Selhoff,” Randal explained. He was looking for some sign of deceit or guilt, but merely breathing seemed an endless source of shame and fear for Ungar.

“Oh, uh, yes, um, you can say fate smiled upon this meeting, mister Randal, because I just happened to be nearby due to, um the funeral of my dear auntie Gisella,” Ungar replied. Randal was not convinced, but he figured that the zombie raven they used for the exchange could always find the way to its master, so he couldn’t call Ungar’s bluff.

“I am sorry for your loss, Ungar. You didn’t have to come here during your mourning, especially during such dangerous times,” Randal said, his tone maybe a little too neutral than the situation required.

“Oh, um, fortunately the travel through the Erdwal was quite uneventful... about auntie Gisella, well, think nothing of it, her, ah, long illness made her passing, as they say, a relief for her and us relatives alike,” Ungar stammered, “it’s so unfortunate we can do so little to, um, delay the arrival of death.”

“Unfortunate indeed,” Randal agreed; then he noticed the cane Ungar held to his chest. That old goat clearly wished to spend a few nights with the geists. “How come Silas didn’t relieve you of your cane? I thought his orders were clear.”

“It’s just that, um, walking without my cane is a real hassle, uh, please don’t blame him for my, ah, despicable weakness,” Ungar implored; Randal shrugged. He couldn’t feel any power from that tasteless object, he had wards in place to protect himself from curses and necromantic attacks and the miserable man couldn’t possibly beat him in a fistfight.

“Speaking of death, in your last missive you told me you had discovered how that unlucky musician departed,” Randal said, “and I’d really like to hear that story while I retrieve the fabled Pearl of the Black Queen so you can finally see it, as promised.”

“Oh yes, the tormented artist in whose hands the, uh, Pearl resided fifty years ago, of course,” Ungar muttered as he recomposed. “Well, after he wrote the Triumphal March, um, I think I sent you its transcript, he couldn’t quite, uh, convince himself he was finished.” Randal freed a slim brass key from the silver chain around his neck.

“He believed there were some notes missing or even, uh, whole sequences he just had to add,” Ungar continued; Randal nodded as he opened the lowest drawer of his writing desk, keeping his left hand on the loaded crossbow he had prepared just under the desk. “But the, um, visions grew fainter, the nightmares duller, so he began to, ah, look for inspiration in absinthe and, er, even stronger substances, if the rumors are to be believed.”

“After a year all his journal entries turned into, um, musical experiments. Absolute, what’s the word, cacophony, for sure, but I can send them to you as soon as I, um, return home, if you wish,” Ungar proposed; Randal made a noncommittal noise and took the little crimson box from the drawer without taking the eyes off the thin man. “He was found dead in his home, surrounded by, um, empty bottles, and one of the guards stole the pearl so he could, ah, settle some gambling debts.” Ungar seemed to allow himself a cautious pride; Randal rewarded him with a smile.

“Very interesting, dear Ungar, intriguing indeed. To think that such a little thing could bring so much suffering…” Randal left his voice trail off as he opened the little box with his right hand in front of Ungar, and saw the grey eyes clearly shimmer with greed.

“It’s sure to be expected from a curio like the Pearl of Deceit, some think that its sole power is, um, accumulating trag-“ Ungar suddenly stopped fidgeting. Randal was leveling an icy stare at him.

“Pearl of Deceit? How did you come across such a strange name?” Randal asked, feigning idle curiosity.

“I, um, just, er, came across, uh, the musician’s notes, ah, surely the rambling of a, what’s the word, delirious lunatic,” Ungar stuttered as he started to tremble.

“Do not lie to me, dear Ungar,” Randal ordered, lifting the box so it was exactly at Ungar’s eye level. “How did you discover the Pearl’s name? Why did you seek it?”

“I learned it through my divinations; They wanted the Pearl so I could become more useful to Them,” Ungar said with a dull tone, no sign of stuttering in his voice; then his eyes widened in terror and his right hand flew to his mouth.

“See? Telling the truth is so easy. Now, tell me who are ‘They’, dear Ungar,” Randal asked; Ungar started sweating profusely, but remained silent. It was the first time someone resisted to a direct order from the Pearl. Randal took the crossbow and leveled it at Ungar’s chest. “Come on, take that hand off your mouth.”

Ungar’s eyes filled with tears. He was shivering, his face pale like a corpse. He closed his eyes and managed to resist the compulsion for another second, then his hand shot away from his mouth, knocking his cane away in the process.

“THEY ARE-“

Ungar’s mouth and eyes shot open as wells of pure darkness. Randal stared into them, hypnotized, until he noticed a couple of red stars staring back at him. He reflexively took his shot, and the crossbow bolt lodged itself in Ungar’s chest with little resistance; but he saw more and more impossible stars blink in Ungar’s eyesockets. Before Randal could gather enough mana to cast a spell, a stream of black oily tentacles erupted from Ungar’s mouth and wrapped themselves around Randal’s head, blocking the light and overwhelming his nostrils with a briny stench; the dying man **HE** realized that the slimy noise **IS** the mess of alien limbs made rubbing against **OURS** each other somehow **TO** resembled **CONTROL** words...

 

* * *

 

Ungar was laying on his back when he opened his dull grey eyes; he looked down at the bolt in his chest, and managed to rip it from his body after a minute of struggle. There was no blood on the bolt he abandoned on the carpet. He sat up, his breath heavy from fatigue. He took the little red box from the ground, which apparently closed itself as it fell from Randal’s hand, retrieved the black pearl and lodged it into the empty slot in his ring. It fit perfectly. He dragged himself to his cane and finally stood up, still a bit wobbly in the legs. He eyed Randal’s muscular corpse.

“Just a moment to fetch some, um, decent clothes and... no, I, of course, I deeply apologize, I just forgot, ah, I am so sorry...” As Ungar kept muttering apologies, the pearl stirred in its ring and a tailored suit appeared on the thin man’s skin.

He stared at the pearl for a second, then the pearl stirred again and the briny smell disappeared. Clad in his new bundle of illusions, Ungar ‘walked away from Innistrad.


End file.
